An open letter from Simon Gustafson, CEO of Adtraction

Adtraction’s raison d'être is to create value for advertisers and publishers. We firmly believe that following this principle is a winning formula not only for the development of Adtraction, but for progressing the industry as a whole.

Service, transparency and local presence

Our strategy and the way we operate is based on three simple tenets. We aim to provide great service, we strive to be transparent and we want to be locally present. Service, transparency and local presence are all facilitators that help us support our partners, and without following these fundamentals I don’t think we would be able to foster the same partner-oriented outlook we have. Our feeling is that if we create value for our advertisers and publishers, then we will be successful.

Service is pivotal in what we do and who we are. Providing service isn’t just a clichè. We see the proof time after time that support helps both publishers and advertisers generate more value and revenue from the affiliate channel. In our opinion, advertisers who choose affiliate marketing through an affiliate network should receive proactive, dedicated and timely support, while publishers should receive prompt and effective support if they encounter problems.

Transparency builds trust in our relationships with advertisers and partners. We often receive feedback from advertisers who cite that they appreciate the openness provided by Adtraction. There is great value associated with the honesty that derives from a service that is 100% transparent, and we genuinely work to live up to this value in everything we do. If we believe that an advertiser wouldn’t benefit from forming a partnership with Adtraction, we wouldn’t recommend it. We work to minimise friction and solve problems – and we’d rather find a mutually beneficial solution than one that appears to “look” right.

The third principle is local presence. This is key to establishing great relationships with publishers and advertisers. While other networks retract and centralise, we have opened up more offices. Local presence further provides an opportunity to gain unique knowledge of the particular market in which we operate, and ensures that our team are experts in their markets.

Our goal is to support the businesses and partners with whom we work, and this approach allows us to maintain an inherent focus on results. We want our advertisers and publishers to be successful. This fundamental focus helps us build great relationships, and these great relationships improve the overall results for all.

Organisational culture

Adtraction has created a culture where everyone is welcome, and where the core values of great support, transparency and local presence stand strong. Investing in the welfare of our employees has led to them performing well and most importantly being happy in the workplace. As CEO I may be biased, but I believe this shines through and benefits our advertisers and publishers directly. Over the years, we have fostered a partner-oriented outlook which is easy for new employees to understand, leaving them successful in their jobs. This is reflected in the fact that our staff churn rate is less than 10%.

Adtraction’s company culture is one of the things of which I’m most proud. It’s inspiring to see that the great people we have hired, bring in other great people who further develop our culture.

When it comes to our internal operations, we apply another important value; ‘delegate and trust’. This principle is based on the idea that the people closest to a particular challenge are the ones best suited to solve that challenge. We don’t need unnecessary power relations to create barriers to Adtraction’s productivity levels. Our ‘delegate and trust’ principle increases the efficiency of our workflows, and results in happier, more enabled employees.

The value of clear guiding principles

In the last couple of months we have worked harder than ever, and knowing what we work for has been particularly important during the turbulent times we have experienced so far in 2020.

Challenging times have forced us to make significant improvements to our business processes and system features. Using the raison d'être of putting advertisers and publishers first, we have actually managed to accomplish more in the last few months than we normally do in a year.

I am immensely proud of the hard work our team has put in to support the businesses with which we work, by helping our advertisers and publishers to continue successfully in these new and different circumstances. We are fortunate to have seen top line growth for the first half of this year and we remain positive about the rest of 2020.